Zhang Guoqing

　　College of Public Management, Zhejiang University

　　Abstract:Desert is the core concept of justice, and social desert is the core concept of distributive justice. Distributive justice involves not only the self-ownership of each person, but also the public resources people share and the social rights and economic interests they acquire from the state and society. Everyone has total self-ownership, which forms the basis of many of the rights they enjoy, but this is not the basis of their social desert. Social desert refers to the public value and shared resources that each person can acquire from society. Its basis is people’s status as members of a community, a status determined by their position in the political, social and economic structure. Social justice means that everyone gets their just desert in the socioeconomic sphere. The theory of social desert is a theory of resource distribution concerned with social justice in the distribution and allocation of basic social resources. It advocates not only the protection of self-ownership and careful treatment of self-ownership transactions, modifications, and compensation, but also equal enjoyment of basic social resources. Announcing a return to the starting point of social justice, it provides a feasible path to easing social contradictions.

　　Keywords:Distributive justice, membership status, self-ownership, social desert